Bin collections in Weymouth & Portland to start again after depot fire

Bin collections in Weymouth and Portland will begin to resume from today (Tuesday 17 November).

Following a major fire at Crookhill depot in Chickerell, all bin collections were suspended as 16 collection vehicles were destroyed or heavily damaged in the blaze last Sunday.

Council officers have been working hard to get replacements in place and clean up the site so it can be used to once again store waste and park vehicles.

As a result, some collections in Weymouth and Portland will resume today (Tuesday 17 November), with all collections reinstated on Wednesday (18 November).

Collection details

Rubbish, food and garden waste collections will take place as normal today (Tuesday 17 November). If your collection day is a Tuesday, please put your bins out as you usually would.

However, there will be no recycling collections today (Tuesday 17 November).

All collections will take place as normal from Wednesday 18 November onwards.

There won't be any catch-up collections for kerbside rubbish and recycling.

Any household that did not receive a collection on Monday 16 or today (Tuesday 17 November) should keep hold of their waste and put it out on the next appropriate collection day when we'll pick up any waste we missed as a result of the service suspension.

Residents are reminded that food waste collections are weekly and that both Weymouth and Portland Household Recycling Centres are open daily from 10am to 4pm if anybody cannot wait until their next bin collection. Please note that both these sites are observing COVID-19 secure restrictions, so there may be long queues.

Dorset Council also wants to emphasise that, while they have enough resources to resume waste collections in Weymouth and Portland, resources will be stretched in the short-term and services may be more prone to disruption than usual in the coming weeks. Some street cleansing services may also be disrupted as specialist large sweeper vehicles are yet to be replaced.

Damage to the site

While Fire and Rescue officers are keeping a close eye on the Crookhill site, Environment Agency officers were in attendance yesterday and were satisfied that the impact to the surrounding environment was minimal. 20,000L of waste liquid was also pumped from tanks on site and removed; the contents primarily consisting of the water and foam used to extinguish the fire.

Cllr. Jill Haynes, Dorset Council's Portfolio Holder for Customer Services and Communities, said:

"This is a phenomenal achievement. To lose most of our vehicle fleet at Crookhill but resume the majority of our bin collection services less than 2 days later is testament to the hard work of all the officers and agencies involved in tackling this incident. On behalf of Dorset Council and the residents of Weymouth and Portland, well done and thank you.

For those who did not receive a collection on Monday or Tuesday, I apologise for any inconvenience this may cause but thank you for your patience and understanding. Please bear with us as we get things back to normal."